The nucleic acid amplification technologies include one using the polymerase chain reaction (Polymerase Chain Reaction; hereinafter referred to as PCR) method. As a known technology related to nucleic acid amplification using such a PCR method, a temperature control apparatus which controls the temperature of a reaction solution obtained by mixing a specimen and a reagent is known.
In the nucleic acid amplification technology based on the PCR method, a reagent and a protocol (conditions on the application of temperature and time) to be used are different depending on the target test item. A batch process method which processes a plurality of reaction solutions under the same test item in one temperature control mechanism at the same time is general until now. However, in recent years, a method which can consecutively process a plurality of different test items in a plurality of temperature control mechanisms has been proposed (see PTL 1).